Unrelated Themes

Yesterday I used the word wanker, as I do from time to time. Among the terms I picked up from my Commonwealth friends in Japan, that’s a favorite. That and bollicks! used as an interjection. Both from England originally, I think, spreading to Australia and New Zealand but not so much here in the States.

Such useful terms. The road, for instance, is full of wankers. The other day, I was at a red light waiting for a right turn against fairly busy traffic. My light turns green, and not a split-second later the wanker behind me honks at me. Perfect word for him. Moron or idiot are tempting, but for all I know he’s a PhD candidate in exobiology at the University of Chicago. Which doesn’t mean that you can’t be a wanker who has the patience of a toddler or thereabouts.

In such cases, by the way, I ease into my turn verrrrrry slowly, treating the horn-blower to an extra few seconds’ wait. I did this the other day. And, as usual, the horn-loving wanker zoomed around me as soon as he could. He was in a hurry to get to the next red light, and he did so a few seconds ahead of me.

The latest issue of Crain’s Chicago Business has a list of the Chicago area’s top tourist attractions, measured by how many people experience each one annually. Curiously, this year, there are really two lists, “sightseeing” attractions and “cultural” attractions. Meaning that I can’t go sightseeing at the Art Institute, which is on the “cultural” list and which is bulging out the doors with sights to see; or that I can’t appreciate the clear cultural aspects of the Lincoln Park Zoo, which is in the “sightseeing” ghetto? Seems like a silly distinction to me.

Sightseeing is a term of mild degradation anyway, at least as many people use it. Spend a day sightseeing and not only haven’t you gone about the important business of doing any work, but you haven’t even improved yourself culturally. All you’ve done is wander around and look at things. Mere sightseeing. Idle sightseeing. A day under your beach umbrella, or maybe a little sightseeing, dear?

That’s not how I understand it. Sightseeing is looking for and at the patterns, the details, the little weirdnesses, human and natural, anywhere you go, places both famous and obscure. Sightseeing is active engagement in seeing the world. Or it can be.